Protein Corona over Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles: Influence of the Pore Diameter on Competitive Adsorption and Application to Prostate Cancer Diagnostics

[EN] Diagnostic tests based on proteomics analysis can have significant advantages over more traditional biochemical tests. However, low molecular weight (MW) protein biomarkers are difficult to identify by standard mass spectrometric analysis, as they are usually present at low concentrations and are masked by more abundant resident proteins. We have previously shown that mesoporous silica nanoparticles are able to capture a predominantly low MW protein fraction from the serum, as compared to the protein corona (PC) adsorbed onto dense silica nanoparticles. In this study, we begin by further investigating this effect using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)/MS and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) to compare the MW of the proteins in the coronas of mesoporous silica nanoparticles with the same particle size but different pore diameters. Next, we examine the process by which two proteins, one small and one large, adsorb onto these mesoporous silica nanoparticles to establish a theory of why the corona becomes enriched in low MW proteins. Finally, we use this information to develop a novel system for the diagnosis of prostate cancer. An elastic net statistical model was applied to LC-MS/MS protein coronas from the serum of 22 cancer patients, identifying proteins specific to each patient group. These studies help to explain why low MW proteins predominate in the coronas of mesoporous silica nanoparticles, and they illustrate the ability of this information to supplement more traditional diagnostic tests.Financial support from the University of Vermont, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (projects TEC2016-80976-R and SEV-2016-0683), and the Generalitat Valenciana (project PROMETEO/2017/060), is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Dr. Jaime Font de Mora for his assistance in the clinical sample collection and Dr. David Herva ' s for the statistical study supervision. We also appreciate the assistance of the electron microscopy service of the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia.Vidaurre Agut, CM.; Rivero-Buceta, EM.; Romaní-Cubells, E.; Clemments, AM.; Vera Donoso, CD.; Landry, C.; Botella Asuncion, P. (2019). Protein Corona over Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles: Influence of the Pore Diameter on Competitive Adsorption and Application to Prostate Cancer Diagnostics. ACS Omega. 4(5):8852-8861. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.9b00460885288614